Monday, 10 June 2013

Humility & Answers to Prayers

Feeling much better this week! My companion and I were trapped in the house for a few days while I worked on getting better, but we´re back in action now!

Today we had an activity with our zone (and 2 others) Such a yummy bbq, even though it got interrupted by a pretty heavy rapid onset rainstorm (this is the dominican republic after all). Fun to see everyone.

There are some changes coming with all the new Hermanas and it looks like our sandals are going to be the first thing to go... sad, but every rule comes with blessings, right?

My companion and I have been studying a chapter in Preach My Gospel & working on our Christlike attributes, and this week's happens to be humility, go figure.

As much as being in the house stunk, it really was neat to get to know Hna
Laughlin better and to work on my patience. We were able to find ways to serve, and things to clean, and study to pass the time, although it was a super weird transition.

This week I want to share a story about a menosactivo (non-active member) we visit. He's an older man who used to be an active member of the church (he served a mission and served in is ward as a bishop), but has been inactive now for a while. His wife is completely uninterested and refuses to share with us when we come, and in our last few lessons with him, he has been really hard to teach. He plays a sort of devil's advocate during our lessons, saying things even he knows aren't true.

But this week when we went to teach him it was so different. I had had a hard morning, and was feeling frustrated and discouraged. Hna Laughlin suggested I take a minute to myself before we left, and said that I was required to pray (& cry, if I needed to... gotta love her!) for at least 10 minutes ... and that's exactly what I did (missions are so great, but they are also so hard & require a lot of a person; we all have our days). Honestly, the release felt great, but I just wasn't sure where I'd go from there.

So, we got to his house and this time we had decided to talk about peace with him. The lesson had such a different tone from any in the past and before I knew it, he started giving advice specifically to me. Telling me never to put off what I could do today until tomorrow; that everything has a time, and that the Lord never gives us anything more than we can handle. He told me that, as much as I need the atonement and the strength of my Savior on my mission, I will need it just as much when I return home.

We left the lesson and Hna Laughlin turned to me and said, "Woah! Did you understand everything he was saying to you??" We talked about what he had said and the different feel in that lesson. I could see him for the first time in a new light, I could see who he had once been, and who he was capable of being. I just kept thinking "woah".

And not only that, but he had ended up unknowingly being the answer to the prayers I had said before I left, and honestly, he may never know it.

So just remember that this week. You never know the impact you have on others, you just don't. You don't know what they are going through or what they need, but many times it is through us that Heavenly Father answers the prayers of others.

Take a moment to listen to those around you & try a little harder to be just that little bit kinder.

That's all, I would say I'd get off my soapbox but ... it turns out this is my blog sooo chances are I'll be back up here next week ;-P

And just so y'all know, the mission is not all stress -- that just happens to be what comes out on my blog! Lots of smiles too, over here in sunny, tropical paradise!!

thoughts & moments:

1. filled up my first 16 gig memory card for my camera, a lot of them are videos but still in 4 months, I'd say thats quite an accomplishment... and everyone laughed at me when I said I brought 5....

2. Saw a blow-up pool hanging in an electricity line.

3. An investigator gave us a huge bag of mangos from her tree and later that same day we helped another woman carry a bag of fruit up to her 2nd story apartment and she handed us

two more. SCORE!

4. I have seen more bats in the past week than in my whole life.

5. Hna Laughlin and I have made a goal to only speak spanish when we leave in the mornings, we later decided that the evenings are for working on our accents, british accents that is. We're thinking after we master those we're going to move on to scottish.

Hna Morales and I!

We were facebook friends before I left, we found each other on some facebook group and knew we were going to the same mish